The
great river Amazon is the world's largest river in terms of most water held
and has the largest drainage basin. (Incidentally, the Amazon River is not the world's longest river - that's the River Nile), and the Amazon
Rainforest is home to some of the richest diversity of life on
the planet. The Amazon has a great many tributaries and on a map
these flow across most of South America. Most of the Amazon
terrain is in Brazil, where there has until recently (2006) at
least, been a problem of cutting down trees. If this goes on, we
might have a problem breathing! Helping to mend this problem and
to save the wildlife, there's the World
Wildlife Fund

When
swimming in the Amazon it's best to wear something that's close-fitting,
as some of the little fishes are of a type which is best kept
away from treating you as an open opportunity.